CHAPTER 104
I spent the next few days in a mess of indecision. I was going to be married, it seemed, and I had no real idea of how that had happened beyond finding myself caught up in the news from England, about Diane’s friend and her own wedding.

Was it the right thing to do? Did I really want it for myself, or was I ticking boxes for Frank’s sake? What about the House, and the girls? I ended up doing what I normally did, and ran the whole thing past Rosie while sitting in that welcoming pub near Cowbridge.

“Over in England, then?”

“Yes. Next to Gatwick Airport”

“I can sort some business over there at the same time, then”

“Sorry?”

She grinned, taking another mouthful of the obligatory hot chocolate.

“You will need someone to stand with you, woman. Oh—didn’t I say?”

“Say what?”

“Say that if you throw this opportunity away, you are a fuckwit. It’s time, Debbie, high time, that you simply took a chance. He’s a good man, for a straight, and you two work well together. I will be over there for you, so just let me know time and place when it’s confirmed. Cold feet?”

I nodded, and she took my hand.

“Spend some time with him, love. Do it in company. Watch how he works with people you know. Then imagine doing it without him”

She grimaced.

“Then remember doing the same without having him. I… I have to do things the other way round, so I know what that is like. Anyway, none of us is that old, so you have plenty of time”

She was grinning again as she said the last.

“Rosie, why do I feel you have something else in mind?”

A bark of laughter.

“Just thinking there’s plenty of time to corrupt him, woman! Toastie?”

My fortune well and truly told, and my decision firmed up. I didn’t tell Frank about any of our chat.

So much going on before our wedding, though, so much to get through. Two weddings for other couples were only the start of it; before Paul and Paula’s, we had that of Diane’s mate Chris to the young doctor that had been treating her other friend, the one who had been shot in the head. Once again, nodes that my life revolved around. I was asked to the stag/hen night, and then realised Charlie was due home, and then, then, then, etc. The girl was upbeat over the phone, two days before she was due back.

“Got a call from Elaine Powell, Nana. She can’t make it to pick me up”

“Bugger…”

“No, not a problem! Got a lift all sorted. Annie and Eric will run me over”

“Want a spare room or something for them? I think the girls will be okay, after what they’ve done for you, and Annie is sort of one of them”

“Um, we’ve already sorted that”

“Oh?”

“Seb’s parents have a spare room for when we get back”

I worked through that comment to its logical conclusion.

“That’ll be a spare room for your friends, then? And you’ll be… Seb?”

She went silent for a few moments before speaking again, far more softly.

“Yeah. Can’t do anything yet, but, well. It’s where I always stay when I visit”

Suddenly, she was laughing.

“And the next night, oh dear! That Annie is so shameless! She’s just going to park up at Diane’s and assume there’s a space”

More laughter, which eased my worries: I would have my girl back in a day, and life would be as it should be. The stag/hen night, for Chris and Darius-the-doctor, was an eye-opener. Kim volunteered to look after the younger girls for the evening; I was gratified at how many from the House had been invited, but then again the girls had been running a care rota when Lexie had been shot, and Gemma’s products were a fixture in the police station. I left my thoughts about multiple court cases locked away, but they were still festering in the back of my mind until we arrived at the Eli Jenkins, a pub near the Waterfront that Di’s team seemed to have adopted as their own.

Chris was being flamboyantly over the top, and when I arrived with Frank, he had already divided their team into two groups, splitting up each couple but planning on a mass reunion later in the evening at Marlene’s place. Where else could it have ended up? Frank and I were allocated to separate groups, and as my other friends arrived, he separated Tiff and Jake, Paul and Paula, Gemma and Marty, and as we were settling into our assigned roles, Charlie and Seb finally arrived at the door. I walked over and wrapped her in a hug, while she whispered all sorts of advice and nonsense comments about squeezing too hard and popping ‘it’ back out again, her young man looking smug. There was a couple with them, and while I knew exactly who they had to be, I actually recognised the woman.

“You must be Annie and Eric”

The man nodded.

“Nana Debbie, I assume?”

I mock-glared at my girl, who grinned, and there was no way I could sustain the expression, so I turned back to her new friends.

“Thank you both for your generosity. No way I can repay that. Thank you”

Annie shook her head, smiling.

“Not how it works, Debbie. Paying forward, aye? It’s only the giving…”

I joined her in “…that makes you what you are”, and we both laughed, before she asked the obvious question.

“You a Tull fan, then?”

I nodded.

“Mam and Dad brought me up properly, music-wise. Dad called them ‘obs’, by the way”

Eric’s head jerked up at that one.

“Eric Frank Russell, yes?”

“Sorry?”

He sighed.

“You were doing so well till then, Debbie. SF writer; came up with the idea of a society based on ‘obs’ rather than money. I’ll lend you the book”

That was such a casual assumption of a continuing friendship I found myself beaming. These were good people, just as I should have expected, he turned to Annie.

“You ready for this, my love?”

She nodded, nerves now showing.

“Got to be done, my darling. Let’s do it”

I slipped back in ahead of them, Charlie and Seb following as Annie and Eric lagged behind them, and Diane was the first to spot Charlie, wrapping her in a hug that left the girl grinning.

“Not fragile, Di! Not no more! All healed, it is now…”

She paused, and her following smile was beatific.

“Properly healed now, isn’t it?”

Di was chuckling, a hint of tears at the corners of her eyes.

“When did you get back?”

“Last night, evening, not too late, anyway. Had a lift”

Charlie simply stepped aside so that Diane could see her companions, and Diane’s tears took a few steps closer to falling properly. Eric obviously spotted what was happening, so switched the mood.

“Well, we were promised beer and curry, and as we are not sharing a tent—or at least I hope not--- I don’t have to stick to The Pledge”

Annie sighed, slapping his arm.

“No snoring or farting, that’s what he means. Anyway, what’s the plan?”

The next thing I knew, three of Diane’s team were walking up to Annie, and I understood the source of her nerves, as it was abundantly clear that all three were old friends from before her transition, and it was a repeat of that visit to Overmonnow with Cathy. It wasn’t just Diane with moist eyes. Annie was hesitant.

“Bryn. Barry. Alun, mate. Good to see you all”

The men’s behaviour was so stereotypically blokish then, as they all, Eric included, made silly jokes to cover their emotions, which remained all too clearly visible in the way they hugged Annie, kissing her cheek and lingering in each embrace. There was such a depth of history there; I stepped away to leave them as much privacy as I could manage.

We left the pub a few minutes later, split into our two groups, my own including Darius, Seb, Tiff, Blake and a big man called Barry, along with Diane’s old boss Elaine, and Annie herself. I was doing my best not to get too wrecked too quickly, as I anticipated the finale at Marlene’s would be pushing at a lot of boundaries. It was a journey of discovery for me, as I found myself surrounded by coppers, all the while with that repeating phrase from the earliest encounters with Paul ringing in my head: am I warming to a copper?

This was surreal, but the more I watched their interplay, the more I understood them. There was so much there that reminded me of dear, dead Oily, or even Carl, in the way they watched over each other. Barry in particular seemed to have a need to talk about so many things, to sound off about managers and how Annie had suffered from them.

“You don’t know her, Debbie. I mean, you wouldn’t, but there are things, well, sometimes we have to do stuff, and it leaves marks”

He caught himself, just then.

“Shit, woman. You know that, you of all people. Annie, well, she got so much shit, and it was worse for her, because she fucking CARES, yeah, and… Annie, how pissed am I?”

She smiled across at him, almost sadly, but not quite.

“Not enough yet, love. Keep trying, aye?”

“Shit. Sounds so right when you call me that, yeah? Why couldn’t you just, you know, tell us all? Years ago?”

“Because I couldn’t, could I? Took some special friends”

She took a couple of deep breaths, looking at me in a way that was all too obviously an attempt to weigh me up, and then made some comments that let me see how much and how often she had spoken to Charlie.

“Barry, it’s a game thing, a role, aye? No shame, but Di told me what happened on that roof”

He shuddered, and she took his hand.

“No shame, love, none at all. Just, now, I can show all that, and men can’t. You have to play at being all solid and cold, and I think that was part of what was breaking me. It wasn’t until Eric…”

She took a couple more deep breaths, then smiled.

“I have always known who and what I am, Barry. Eric let me see that I could find a life for myself. Simple as that. Without him, well, I couldn’t see a way out. Didn’t have that, or him, over here, did I?”

He shook his head, and she changed tack.

“Anyway, Di calls her ‘Office Blonde’. I need details!”

Subject changed, however bluntly, and she slipped me a wink as Barry stumbled through an obviously edited True Confession, and I realised how sharp she was, while asking myself how she had survived that long pretending to be a man. How easy my own life had been, in that way, as once Mam had found me, I had simply been accepted, allowed to grow up as myself. I had never, really, had to spend any meaningful time pretending. Keep counting those blessings, Petrie.

In the end, we reassembled at Marlene’s place, to a flow of snogs as couples were completed, even though some of the solos were rather wobbly. Our own group had contained a couple who had worked hard at banishing sobriety, Barry and Elaine being the most obvious, but Frank was looking rather the worse for wear. Store it up for later blackmail, I thought, but I ended up distracted as the various couples reunited, which meant me and him, and saying hello again got a little involved.

At one point, I looked up to see Barry snuggled up to his blonde, Candice, as his other arm held Annie, and her free arm held Alun, and Barry himself looked so much more relaxed that I gave up the idea of asking about ‘that roof’ and the events there. He was happy now, and so was I, and that was what mattered.

I turned away to put my glass down on the bar, another one replacing it almost immediately as Marlene kept me topped up, and two glasses later I nearly missed the bar. Oh. Charlie appeared at my side, an older lady beside her.

“Debbie? This is Seb’s mum. Giving the four of us a lift home”

She was a skinny woman, brown hair greying at the roots, but she had a smile that felt warm and genuine, and a firm grip when she shook my hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Debbie, and I mean that. I’m April. Am I supposed to call you Nana?”

I gave a grinning Charlie a poor attempt at a glare, and she giggled, just as Tiff and Jake joined us, but April hadn’t finished.

“Charlie has been very open with us, Debbie. We know… We are aware of her history, but what counts is who we have with us now. That’s your doing. Thank you. And I will leave that there before I get sobby, and my rather wobbly son here gets even more embarrassed. You all ready? Coats and handbags? Got your handbag, Seb?”

They were off, in a swirl of laughter, and I found Frank beside me, holding my own coat.

“I think sobriety has had enough banishment tonight, love. Marty and Gemma are already away”

“Shit! I missed them?”

“You were busy lecturing Lexie about something, don’t know what, then wrapped up in that Asian copper for a while, saying goodbye. It’s a bloody good thing I know who you are marrying”

I turned around so that he could do the man-helping-with-a-coat routine, which made me feel really happy for no particular reason other than that he was there with me, and as I pulled my jacket over my shoulders, Diane came scurrying over.

“You off, love?”

I nodded, settling back against my man.

“Aye! Both of us getting old, we are”

“Quick question, OK? June, in England, camping weekend, you and the girls, and their boys, and music?”

Bit late for that one, Diane. Keep up the dumb show, Petrie, and smile. I tried a bit of teasing.

“Would this be folk?”

“Ish!”

“And in which language? Sod it! I don’t give a shit, right now. Sort details out later; I have a warm man to get into bed and…”

Shit. That wasn’t something I meant to say. Frank’s arm was over my shoulder, and he half-whispered into my ear.

“You never know, love. Play your cards right, aye?”

I remembered the glass almost missing the bar. I twisted round enough to see his eyes.

“How much have I had to drink, love?”

Sod thinking about the future; this was here, this was now, and that smile of his was for me.

“Does it matter?”

Bugger all the witnesses. I reached round for his head, pulling it down for a proper kiss, then letting him pull back just a little as I smiled and answered his question.

“No. Not really. Night, Di”

He had a taxi waiting, the sensible man, and that saved me from any more necessity to play dumb for Diane. She would find out in June. In the meantime, I did indeed have a warm man, in so many senses of the word, and there was a bed waiting for us to share.